My favorite film when I was a child was long ignored in my adolescence, and now as I become an adult, I have found a piece of life-essence itself. "The Neverending Story" makes me cry. It is not about reading books. It is about creativity, oh, but so much more. As a boy I wanted to visit Fantasia and ride the luckdraggon and even meet the Empress (who is still one of the most beautifully filmed characters ever) but I knew it was all a movie and continued with my life. The biggest mistake ever.
The Neverending Story was real. It kept telling me that I was part of it to, but I never understood that as a child. It is not about books, but about going beyond books, transcending them, moving away from words and pages into making things real for yourself. Perhaps that's why I dislike the book so greatly. It was too specific. Bastian was made a character too detailed for his own good. Bastian, in the movie, and appropriately so, is not only every child, but every person. Anyone can relate to him and his wishes, whereas the book was too character driven and not fascinated enough by its own premise. And those who scoff at the film's effects, then spend the rest of your life in a laboratory and concern yourself with the physical world and never understand what The Neverending Story was about. If you do, someday you will regret it, lying sick in your bed, with no dragon to fly you to your dreams.
The Neverending Story was real. It kept telling me that I was part of it to, but I never understood that as a child. It is not about books, but about going beyond books, transcending them, moving away from words and pages into making things real for yourself. Perhaps that's why I dislike the book so greatly. It was too specific. Bastian was made a character too detailed for his own good. Bastian, in the movie, and appropriately so, is not only every child, but every person. Anyone can relate to him and his wishes, whereas the book was too character driven and not fascinated enough by its own premise. And those who scoff at the film's effects, then spend the rest of your life in a laboratory and concern yourself with the physical world and never understand what The Neverending Story was about. If you do, someday you will regret it, lying sick in your bed, with no dragon to fly you to your dreams.